(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates to systems and methods for augmenting the assessment of virtual image insertion opportunities in media streams, and more particularly to the use of artificial intelligence techniques, such as machine learning and deep learning, to augment and automate part, or all, of such assessments.
(2) Description of the Related Art
The technical problem of assessing media streams for virtual insertion opportunities arises in the technical fields of television broadcasting and video content distribution.
Virtual insertion of images, including images representing objects, into media streams such as, but not limited to, television broadcasts, has become possible through the use of digital pattern recognition and match moving technology. It is used, for instance, in live broadcasts of television sporting events to both insert graphics, such as the virtual 1st and 10 line in football, and to insert advertising, such as banners behind the batter in televised baseball games.
The technology has also been used to place banners and objects in recorded television shows. There are libraries of many hundreds of hours of recorded television shows that are used for re-broadcasts, or distributed via streaming services as on-demand content. This large quantity of recorded video content represents a significant potential opportunity for generating revenue by virtual image insertion for product placement or advertising. A difficulty, however, is the enormously labor intensive task of reviewing the content to find suitable locations for the virtual insertions. What is needed is a system and method that can augment, or completely automate, this task of assessing video images for the assessment of virtual insertion opportunities.
The relevant prior art includes:
U.S. Pat. No. 9,621,929 issued to Chenillo et al. on Apr. 11, 2017 entitled “Method of video content selection and display” that describes a method of automated content selection in which an end user views multimedia content provided via by a content aggregator that is also programmed to detect content delivery boundaries. This occurs, for instance, when the provider switches from showing an event to showing interstitial advertising. On detecting a delivery boundary, a substitute stream of multimedia content is then automatically sent. Detecting a content delivery boundary is accomplished in a twostep process. First, a candidate frame indicative of a deliver boundary is found. This is done, for instance, by finding a change in average sound volume of sufficient magnitude. The candidate frame is then compared to a database of representative frames of known interstitial video segments. If a sufficiently good match is found, the frame is determined to be a content boundary frame, and appropriate switching of the video being relayed is made.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,351,032 issued to Briggs et al. on May 24, 2016 entitled “Interactive product placement system and method therefor” that describes a method for presenting advertisements for commercial products in video productions, whereby the commercial product is placed in the video production as an element of the video production. A viewer is enabled to interact with the video production to select the product. Information is then displayed about the selected product; and the viewer is enabled to purchase the selected product.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,584,736 issued to Deshpande et al. on Feb. 28, 2017 entitled “Automatic repositioning of video elements” that describes a system and method for automatically repositioning virtual and physical elements in a scene. The system and method being configured to receive a video frame, receive data, including position data, describing a first element to be imaged in the video frame, receive data, including position data, describing a second element to be imaged in the video frame, assign a dynamic status to the first element and automatically reposition at least the first element to create a modified video frame.
Various implementations are known in the art, but fail to address all of the problems solved by the invention described herein. Various embodiments of this invention are illustrated in the accompanying drawings and will be described in more detail herein below.